According to ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual, (An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights, 2.4), “School library media specialists cooperate with other individuals in building collections of resources that meet the needs as well as the developmental and maturity levels of students” (p. 91). Therefore, schools and school boards should make policies that address access issues, which are related to services of the school library media program.
Article # 1: Forging Alliances and Access: Connecting Florida's Students with Public Library Collections by Pat Bauer and Carol Hogue
The following article promotes school/public library cooperation for expanding students’ access to materials and information. On the one hand, an Internet connection and a public library card can provide students with electronic access to public library collection. On the other hand, the courier systems can provide physical access to the public library materials.
Questions:
1: Do you think that forging alliances between a public library system and a school media center would promote and expand students’ access to information?
2. How might students benefit from gaining access to public library collections through multi-type library systems?
"Students with a public library card may gain electronic access to the Alleycat website from their home, classroom, school media center, or public library and ask that requested materials be delivered to their nearest public library. This costs the library user nothing, but the service is not free. The services of multi-type library cooperatives are funded through state and federal grants." (5)
RE: Barriers to Access although all it takes is internet access and a library card
1. Public libraries could offer simplified process for students to obtain library cards (without parent signatures, etc.) (5-6)
2. School media librarian could provide easy links to consortium's resources via school library website, etc./encourage students to bookmark consortium portal via home computer, too (6)
3. Encourage students to search consortium when school library doesn't carry items wanted/needed - "After a few successful searches for materials in public library collections, both teachers and students will become users that see public library materials as a natural extension of their school collection." (7)
4. Physical proximity to public library can be a barrier, but courier systems can provide a more-convenient system: "A model for this type of cooperation can be found in the service provided by the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative (PPLC). As their
courier makes his way to the public libraries that are members of the cooperative, he also stops twice a week at the school district administrative office to return school materials that are mistakenly returned to public libraries. A natural extension of this service would be for the PPLC courier to deliver public or academic library materials requested by students to the district office which would then forward the materials to the designated school through the district’s delivery system. Providing seamless library service to users anywhere, anytime can be as easy as two clicks of a mouse." (8)
"Cooperative collection development with local public librarians will provide opportunities for school librarians to stretch budget dollars for maximum benefit of their users. Through collaborative activities, such as providing Accelerated Reader lists, school library media specialists will also be establishing formal lines of communication that will serve their students well when the bell rings at the end of the day and the school library is closed." (7)
RE: Promoting Alliances between public library system and school media centers
1. Get the word out to school faculty - e.g. media center policy manuals, announcements when presenting to school faculty, cross promoting public libarary events, introduce public library staff at school faculty meetings
2. Get the word out to students - e.g. bookmarks with public library website; announcements via school in-house tv channel re: family events/library card sign-up programs; bookmark/link consortium website on school webpages
3. Nurture open communications between school and public libary
"Egypt Lake Partnership Library provides a model that informs all school media specialists interested in providing seamless library service to their faculty and students. An Internet connection and a public library card can provide electronic access, while the courier systems already in place in much of Florida can provide physical access to public library collections. The nearest public library for most students is not located on their school campus, as it is at Egypt Lake, but multi-type library cooperatives in the state of Florida can assist school media specialists who aspire to this seamless model to meet the information needs of students." (8)
Article # 2: Student Access to the School Library by Lillian Carefoot
In this article, Lillian Carefoot, who has been involved with school libraries for more than 25 years as teacher-librarian, briefly discusses factors that school administrators should consider when they are making decisions about student access to the school library.
Questions:
1. How do the need of parental or teacher permission affects student access to information?
2. Do you consider restricting a child by reading level an access issue?
LISA'S RESPONSE
Questions:
1: Do you think that forging alliances between a public library system and a school media center would promote and expand students’ access to information?
2. How might students benefit from gaining access to public library collections through multi-type library systems?
In response to the questions for the Bauer/Hogue article, and in perusing other library literature (including some articles featured in Patty Carlton's ALA-sanctioned "School/Public Library Partnerships Bibliography" and several articles/websites related specifically to library access in Indiana), I say, "Of course an alliance forged between a public library system and a school media center has the potential of promoting and expanding students' access to information."
I emphasize the word "potential" because even when an alliance is declared as a mutually desirable thing to achieve, there are many barriers that can prevent the alliance from going beyond some "talking point" that each agency can claim on their annual reports. In order for such an alliance to make a real difference in students' access to information, it takes something along the line of the three-part process described by Daniel Callison, former Executive Associate Dean of Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science at Indianapolis, as co-planning, co-implementation and co-evaluation (LaMaster): "If librarians come together to plan, start and evaluate a program together the project easily falls under the umbrella of collaboration. This process may be simple or complex. What often hangs up the process is the feeling by professions that collaboration requires heavy allotments of time and money" (Id.)
LaMaster's article "Collaboration of Indiana Public and School Media Center Youth Services: A Survey Analysis of Current Practices" provides an interesting perspective regarding the longstanding push in Indiana for alliances between public libraries and school libraries (according to LaMster's review of literature). Despite this push (that can be traced back as far as 1895 when presenters at the ALA annual conference encouraged schools and public libraries to collaborate the Indiana Library Commission's seven collaborative guidelines proposed in 1904.), LaMaster's survey of 91 public libraries and elementary school media centers in Indiana produced some pretty bleak results:
Although continual discussion of the topic has gone on in library schools, conferences and local workshops, Indiana public libraries and elementary school media centers are not collaborating in large numbers. Forty-seven public libraries (79%) reported collaboration while twenty-four elementary school media centers (57%) reported collaborative efforts. However, most of these collaborations were via email, letter or phone. Only seventeen (29%) public libraries and six (14%) elementary school media centers reported face-to-face interaction.
According to LaMaster's article, barriers to true collaborative efforts include:
lack of time
lack of administrative support
lack of creative programming
inadequate staffing
inadequate funding
inadequate education levels of library personnel
lack of common goal in collaboration (e.g. a shared commitment to community literacy and students' love of reading)
territoriality/"turf wars"
Interestingly, LaMaster elaborated that, "The lack of a shared goal makes it appear that neither group knows why they are collaborating. Maybe they just were told to work together. By creating joint mission statements, perhaps collaboration could move forward."
As to the question of specific benefits students may gain from an authentic collaborative partnership, one benefit that comes to my mind immediately is the importance of teaching and reinforcing information literacy/digital citizenship skills in different contexts and different learning situations. As pointed out by Roger Clarke, "...students have come to expect that the answer to any question will be 'on the Internet', and are now surprised and even dismayed to find themselves directed to sources other than the World Wide Web. And many of the impacts and implications cut much more deeply than that into the social and economic conventions of the late twentieth century."
It's not that many students don't realize that they are lacking the skills to go beyond Googling for information--in fact, as discussed in Arafeh et al.'s Pew Internet & American Life Project report, "The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet-Savvy Students and their Schools," students are disappointed that their schools are not doing a good job of providing these skills and/or partnering with public libraries and/or other agencies that might be able to fill in the gap. By forging partnerships, the teachers and school media center librarians could also take advantage of the classes provided by public libraries to develop their own information literacy skills, which would benefit the students (and which would also be in line with students' beliefs that "professional development and technical assistance for teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula" (Arafeh et al.)
On the other hand, 6.5 percent of Indiana's population is underserved or unserved by Indiana public libraries (Brooker; "Map of Served and Unserved Area"). The reason for this lies with the fact that there are localities that do not pay taxes toward the public library that would otherwise serve them. Carl A. Harvey, II explains that the reasons some localities do not pay taxes that would fund their libraries "vary but in most cases it is lack of will — or even active opposition to paying taxes - by some individuals or groups in the community. In some cases, residents may want library service, but local elected officials are opposed."
There are programs in place for residents of these localities; that is, they can purchase a non-resident card from any library (which price-point is representative of the amount of taxes they would have paid for these services). This non-resident card essentially buys them a "home library". From having worked in the circulation department of a large public library system with unserved residents in a few townships, the people who discover they are not served by the library system were often surprised to learn that they were unserved and/or were surprised at the fee for the non-resident library card. I don't recall the fee at the time, but currently, the same library system charges $64.00 per year for an individual or $160.00 per year for a family. While we did our best to explain that the library's rationale for the fees are that they represent the taxes that would have been paid, the majority of these unserved residents chose not to purchase a non-resident card.
In terms of school/public library partnerships, this unfortunate reality of unserved townships in Indiana is a major barrier. On the other hand, with the courier system in Indiana, the students in unserved townships may be able to utilize Interlibrary loan services to get many of the materials that their school library does not carry; that is, if the school system subscribes to the service (another barrier).
Brooker, Roberta. "Indiana State Library - LSTA Five-Year Plan 2008 - 2012 - Approved by the Institute of Museum & Library Services." Indiana State Library. 1 Oct. 2007. Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.in.gov/library/files/LSTAPlan2008-2012.pdf>
LaMaster, Jennifer. "Collaboration of Indiana Public and School Media Center Youth Services: A Survey Analysis of Current Practices." Indiana Libraries 24.1 (2005): 38-41. Library Lit & Inf Full Text. Web. 11 June 2011.
1. How do the need of parental or teacher permission affects student access to information?
2. Do you consider restricting a child by reading level an access issue?
Whether in the name of reading-readiness, age-appropriateness, student maturity levels, and the like, by placing restrictions on student access to materials in their school's library media center is contrary to students' right to intellectual freedom. Granted, library media specialists have a lot of tough choices when it comes to collection development decisions. However, if the selection of library materials (that will meet the instructional, recreational, and informational needs of students) is coordinated by the library media specialist in a way that actively involves faculty, administrators, school board members, students, and parents in an ongoing manner--all in line with the promotion of intellectual freedom--such efforts might lessen the blow of decreased student access (Hopkins).
In other words, the school media specialist can't just sit back and wonder why other stakeholders (teachers, administrators, students, the community, etc.) are not on board with intellectual freedom concepts. The school media specialist has to take on a leadership role in an ongoing, diversely applied manner.
This includes admitting to students that there are limitations to the materials available at a school library and promoting the fact that they can gain access to so much information by such means as public libraries, interlibrary loan services, and computer networks/databases (such as the INSPIRE network in Indiana).
I feel like a key barrier to access is being unaware of your options. Not any one library branch or library system or school media center or library alliance has the ability to provide unlimited access to information. However, by taking a leadership role, admitting limitations, and promoting the development of becoming a resourceful seeker of information, library professionals can get that much closer to making a positive impact on students' access to information.
Zora Komanova-Shipochka - access; Lisa, Ashley, Cindy, Erin
According to ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual, (An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights, 2.4), “School library media specialists cooperate with other individuals in building collections of resources that meet the needs as well as the developmental and maturity levels of students” (p. 91). Therefore, schools and school boards should make policies that address access issues, which are related to services of the school library media program.
Article # 1: Forging Alliances and Access: Connecting Florida's Students with Public Library Collections by Pat Bauer and Carol Hogue
The following article promotes school/public library cooperation for expanding students’ access to materials and information. On the one hand, an Internet connection and a public library card can provide students with electronic access to public library collection. On the other hand, the courier systems can provide physical access to the public library materials.
Questions:
1: Do you think that forging alliances between a public library system and a school media center would promote and expand students’ access to information?
2. How might students benefit from gaining access to public library collections through multi-type library systems?
Lisa's Reading NOTES:
Bauer, Pat, and Carol Hogue. "Forging Alliances and Access: Connecting Florida's Students with Public Library Collections." Florida Media Quarterly 29.1 (2003): 4-8. Web. 10 Jun. 2011 <http://www.floridamedia.org/resource/resmgr/fmq/fmq_fal_20l03_v29_n1.pdf>
"Students with a public library card may gain electronic access to the Alleycat website from their home, classroom, school media center, or public library and ask that requested materials be delivered to their nearest public library. This costs the library user nothing, but the service is not free. The services of multi-type library cooperatives are funded through state and federal grants." (5)
RE: Barriers to Access although all it takes is internet access and a library card
1. Public libraries could offer simplified process for students to obtain library cards (without parent signatures, etc.) (5-6)
2. School media librarian could provide easy links to consortium's resources via school library website, etc./encourage students to bookmark consortium portal via home computer, too (6)
3. Encourage students to search consortium when school library doesn't carry items wanted/needed - "After a few successful searches for materials in public library collections, both teachers and students will become users that see public library materials as a natural extension of their school collection." (7)
4. Physical proximity to public library can be a barrier, but courier systems can provide a more-convenient system: "A model for this type of cooperation can be found in the service provided by the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative (PPLC). As their
courier makes his way to the public libraries that are members of the cooperative, he also stops twice a week at the school district administrative office to return school materials that are mistakenly returned to public libraries. A natural extension of this service would be for the PPLC courier to deliver public or academic library materials requested by students to the district office which would then forward the materials to the designated school through the district’s delivery system. Providing seamless library service to users anywhere, anytime can be as easy as two clicks of a mouse." (8)
"Cooperative collection development with local public librarians will provide opportunities for school librarians to stretch budget dollars for maximum benefit of their users. Through collaborative activities, such as providing Accelerated Reader lists, school library media specialists will also be establishing formal lines of communication that will serve their students well when the bell rings at the end of the day and the school library is closed." (7)
RE: Promoting Alliances between public library system and school media centers
1. Get the word out to school faculty - e.g. media center policy manuals, announcements when presenting to school faculty, cross promoting public libarary events, introduce public library staff at school faculty meetings
2. Get the word out to students - e.g. bookmarks with public library website; announcements via school in-house tv channel re: family events/library card sign-up programs; bookmark/link consortium website on school webpages
3. Nurture open communications between school and public libary
"Egypt Lake Partnership Library provides a model that informs all school media specialists interested in providing seamless library service to their faculty and students. An Internet connection and a public library card can provide electronic access, while the courier systems already in place in much of Florida can provide physical access to public library collections. The nearest public library for most students is not located on their school campus, as it is at Egypt Lake, but multi-type library cooperatives in the state of Florida can assist school media specialists who aspire to this seamless model to meet the information needs of students." (8)
Article # 2: Student Access to the School Library by Lillian Carefoot
http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy2.ulib.iupui.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=9460805&site=ehost-live
In this article, Lillian Carefoot, who has been involved with school libraries for more than 25 years as teacher-librarian, briefly discusses factors that school administrators should consider when they are making decisions about student access to the school library.
Questions:
1. How do the need of parental or teacher permission affects student access to information?
2. Do you consider restricting a child by reading level an access issue?
LISA'S RESPONSE
Questions:
1: Do you think that forging alliances between a public library system and a school media center would promote and expand students’ access to information?
2. How might students benefit from gaining access to public library collections through multi-type library systems?
In response to the questions for the Bauer/Hogue article, and in perusing other library literature (including some articles featured in Patty Carlton's ALA-sanctioned "School/Public Library Partnerships Bibliography" and several articles/websites related specifically to library access in Indiana), I say, "Of course an alliance forged between a public library system and a school media center has the potential of promoting and expanding students' access to information."
I emphasize the word "potential" because even when an alliance is declared as a mutually desirable thing to achieve, there are many barriers that can prevent the alliance from going beyond some "talking point" that each agency can claim on their annual reports. In order for such an alliance to make a real difference in students' access to information, it takes something along the line of the three-part process described by Daniel Callison, former Executive Associate Dean of Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science at Indianapolis, as co-planning, co-implementation and co-evaluation (LaMaster): "If librarians come together to plan, start and evaluate a program together the project easily falls under the umbrella of collaboration. This process may be simple or complex. What often hangs up the process is the feeling by professions that collaboration requires heavy allotments of time and money" (Id.)
LaMaster's article "Collaboration of Indiana Public and School Media Center Youth Services: A Survey Analysis of Current Practices" provides an interesting perspective regarding the longstanding push in Indiana for alliances between public libraries and school libraries (according to LaMster's review of literature). Despite this push (that can be traced back as far as 1895 when presenters at the ALA annual conference encouraged schools and public libraries to collaborate the Indiana Library Commission's seven collaborative guidelines proposed in 1904.), LaMaster's survey of 91 public libraries and elementary school media centers in Indiana produced some pretty bleak results:
Although continual discussion of the topic has gone on in library schools, conferences and local workshops, Indiana public libraries and elementary school media centers are not collaborating in large numbers. Forty-seven public libraries (79%) reported collaboration while twenty-four elementary school media centers (57%) reported collaborative efforts. However, most of these collaborations were via email, letter or phone. Only seventeen (29%) public libraries and six (14%) elementary school media centers reported face-to-face interaction.
According to LaMaster's article, barriers to true collaborative efforts include:
Interestingly, LaMaster elaborated that, "The lack of a shared goal makes it appear that neither group knows why they are collaborating. Maybe they just were told to work together. By creating joint mission statements, perhaps collaboration could move forward."
As to the question of specific benefits students may gain from an authentic collaborative partnership, one benefit that comes to my mind immediately is the importance of teaching and reinforcing information literacy/digital citizenship skills in different contexts and different learning situations. As pointed out by Roger Clarke, "...students have come to expect that the answer to any question will be 'on the Internet', and are now surprised and even dismayed to find themselves directed to sources other than the World Wide Web. And many of the impacts and implications cut much more deeply than that into the social and economic conventions of the late twentieth century."
It's not that many students don't realize that they are lacking the skills to go beyond Googling for information--in fact, as discussed in Arafeh et al.'s Pew Internet & American Life Project report, "The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet-Savvy Students and their Schools," students are disappointed that their schools are not doing a good job of providing these skills and/or partnering with public libraries and/or other agencies that might be able to fill in the gap. By forging partnerships, the teachers and school media center librarians could also take advantage of the classes provided by public libraries to develop their own information literacy skills, which would benefit the students (and which would also be in line with students' beliefs that "professional development and technical assistance for teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula" (Arafeh et al.)
On the other hand, 6.5 percent of Indiana's population is underserved or unserved by Indiana public libraries (Brooker; "Map of Served and Unserved Area"). The reason for this lies with the fact that there are localities that do not pay taxes toward the public library that would otherwise serve them. Carl A. Harvey, II explains that the reasons some localities do not pay taxes that would fund their libraries "vary but in most cases it is lack of will — or even active opposition to paying taxes - by some individuals or groups in the community. In some cases, residents may want library service, but local elected officials are opposed."
There are programs in place for residents of these localities; that is, they can purchase a non-resident card from any library (which price-point is representative of the amount of taxes they would have paid for these services). This non-resident card essentially buys them a "home library". From having worked in the circulation department of a large public library system with unserved residents in a few townships, the people who discover they are not served by the library system were often surprised to learn that they were unserved and/or were surprised at the fee for the non-resident library card. I don't recall the fee at the time, but currently, the same library system charges $64.00 per year for an individual or $160.00 per year for a family. While we did our best to explain that the library's rationale for the fees are that they represent the taxes that would have been paid, the majority of these unserved residents chose not to purchase a non-resident card.
In terms of school/public library partnerships, this unfortunate reality of unserved townships in Indiana is a major barrier. On the other hand, with the courier system in Indiana, the students in unserved townships may be able to utilize Interlibrary loan services to get many of the materials that their school library does not carry; that is, if the school system subscribes to the service (another barrier).
Sources
Arafeh, Sousan, Doug Levin, Lee Rainie, and Amanda Lenhart. "The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet-Savvy Students and their Schools." Pew Internet & American Life Project. 14 Aug. 2002. Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2002/The-Digital-Disconnect-The-widening-gap-between-Internetsavvy-students-and-their-schools.aspx>
Bauer, Pat, and Carol Hogue. "Forging Alliances and Access: Connecting Florida's Students with Public Library Collections." Florida Media Quarterly 29.1 (2003): 4-8. Web. 10 Jun. 2011 <http://www.floridamedia.org/resource/resmgr/fmq/fmq_fal_20l03_v29_n1.pdf>
Brooker, Roberta. "Indiana State Library - LSTA Five-Year Plan 2008 - 2012 - Approved by the Institute of Museum & Library Services." Indiana State Library. 1 Oct. 2007. Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.in.gov/library/files/LSTAPlan2008-2012.pdf>
Carleton, Patty. "School/Public Library Partnerships Bibliography." ALAConnect. 19 Aug. 2009. Web. 11 June. 2011. <http://connect.ala.org/node/80733>
Clarke, Roger. "Freedom of Information? The Internet as Harbinger of the New Dark Ages." First Monday 4.11 (1999). Web. 11 Jun. 2011.
<http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/699/609>
Harvey, II, Carl A. "Setting the Record Straight About Public Library Service." Carroll County Comet. 30 Jul. 2008. Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.carrollcountycomet.com/news/2008-07-30/local_news/053.html>
LaMaster, Jennifer. "Collaboration of Indiana Public and School Media Center Youth Services: A Survey Analysis of Current Practices." Indiana Libraries 24.1 (2005): 38-41. Library Lit & Inf Full Text. Web. 11 June 2011.
"Map of Served and Unserved Area." Indiana State Library. Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.in.gov/library/3313.htm>
1. How do the need of parental or teacher permission affects student access to information?
2. Do you consider restricting a child by reading level an access issue?
Whether in the name of reading-readiness, age-appropriateness, student maturity levels, and the like, by placing restrictions on student access to materials in their school's library media center is contrary to students' right to intellectual freedom. Granted, library media specialists have a lot of tough choices when it comes to collection development decisions. However, if the selection of library materials (that will meet the instructional, recreational, and informational needs of students) is coordinated by the library media specialist in a way that actively involves faculty, administrators, school board members, students, and parents in an ongoing manner--all in line with the promotion of intellectual freedom--such efforts might lessen the blow of decreased student access (Hopkins).
In other words, the school media specialist can't just sit back and wonder why other stakeholders (teachers, administrators, students, the community, etc.) are not on board with intellectual freedom concepts. The school media specialist has to take on a leadership role in an ongoing, diversely applied manner.
This includes admitting to students that there are limitations to the materials available at a school library and promoting the fact that they can gain access to so much information by such means as public libraries, interlibrary loan services, and computer networks/databases (such as the INSPIRE network in Indiana).
I feel like a key barrier to access is being unaware of your options. Not any one library branch or library system or school media center or library alliance has the ability to provide unlimited access to information. However, by taking a leadership role, admitting limitations, and promoting the development of becoming a resourceful seeker of information, library professionals can get that much closer to making a positive impact on students' access to information.
Source
Hopkins, Diana. "School Library Media Centers and Intellectual Freedom." American Library Association (Online). Web. 11 Jun. 2011. <http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/iftoolkits/ifmanual/fifthedition/schoollibrary.cfm>